快猫短视频

Time to say bye to your tie? The businesswear staple reduces blood flow to the brain by squashing veins in the neck, research suggests.

Robin L眉ddecke at University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein in Germany and his colleagues聽scanned the brains of聽15 healthy young men before and after they put on a tie. Each participant was instructed to make a Windsor knot and tighten it to the point of slight discomfort.

Just after the men tightened the ties, the blood flow in their brains dropped by an average of 7.5 per cent. In contrast, no changes in blood flow were observed when the experiment was repeated with 15 men who did not put on a tie.

Wearing a tie compresses veins in the neck, pushing blood into the skull and creating pressure build-up, says L眉ddecke. This extra pressure most likely crushes the brain鈥檚 blood vessels and reduces blood flow, he says.

Fashion victims

In healthy people, a 7.5 per cent drop in blood flow in the brain is unlikely to lead to noticeable symptoms, says at Neuroscience Research Australia in Sydney. However, it could potentially create problems for smokers, older people or those with high blood pressure, who may already have sluggish blood flow due to blocked or damaged vessels in their brains, he says.

In this high-risk group, an extra drop in blood flow due to tie-wearing might cause headaches, dizziness and nausea, Kassem suggests. Studies have found that long-term blood restriction to the brain is associated with the development of Alzheimer鈥檚 disease, although it鈥檚 unlikely that tie-wearing would have this severe an effect, he says.

The latest findings are consistent with a previous study led by Robert Ritch at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, which found that wearing a tie raised pressure in the eyes 鈥� a potential risk factor for eye conditions like glaucoma.

One solution is to wear a looser tie, although this tends to look sloppy, says Kassem. 鈥淚 think there鈥檚 probably enough room for us now to say, 鈥楢lright, maybe we should stop wearing ties altogether鈥�,鈥� he says.

Fortunately, tie-wearing is no longer considered a prerequisite of professionalism. For example, a 2010 survey found that only one in ten UK hospital patients .

Read more: Vegan-friendly fashion is actually bad for the environment